The blizzards that blanketed parts of the midwest this week have put to the test an initiative that allows people to help researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by reporting precipitation in their area.

A NOAA mobile app, launched in December and available on Android and iPhone, is the product of the Precipitation Identification Near the Ground (Ping) project, an undertaking of the National Severe Storm Laboratory (NSSL) and researchers at the University of Oklahoma. The Ping app is a "citizen scientist" venture that allows people to take the place of satellites and record data on the ground that radar cannot reach.

The Ping website reflects user submissions from the storms that howled across America's plains region earlier this week

NSSL researchers are faced with the usual dilemmas created by crowdsourcing – in particular, how to discern false reports from accurate ones. To tackle the problem of fake or inaccurate user submissions, the NSSL investigates users' identities. Kim Elmore, adjunct professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, says researchers confirm the validity of Ping reports by calling random people in reported areas and asking how the weather is.

She says: "We called [the] meteorology faculty at the University of North Carolina during a major winter storm there and asked them what they observed, then compared that to nearby observations. In all cases, we found that 'expert' observations agreed with 'layman' observations."

On its website, the NSSL insists that the app will help expand scientific research in the field of meteorology. It says: "NSSL scientists will compare your report with what the radar has detected, and develop new radar technologies and techniques to determine what kind of precipitation – such as snow, soft hail, hard hail, or rain – is falling where."

Elmore says the app could help severe-weather warnings reach certain areas at a faster pace – which is all the more necessary given the lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy last fall and this week's blizzard in the American plains.

"From these data, forecasters may gain insights about how a system is evolving, if things are progressing as expected, etc," she says.